Chart of the Day – Energy Density v. Area Required

This rather obscure chart illustrates how space intensive different power sources are in relation to each other. The grey energy sources are renewable, while the white boxes are fossil fuels.

Basically, it illustrates how much less dense many of the renewable energy options are compared to coal and oil. Not that they don’t also take up a great deal of space, but that there’s more energy returned afterward because of the high amount of energy stored in these fossil fuels.

This also doesn’t address the space required to extract and transport the energy source itself, right? Natural gas requires many well-heads, pipelines, refineries, and shipping containers to get the NG to plants that can produce it.

Does it also include the area required to distribute the energy? Centralized facilities vs distributed ones (mostly solar, some smaller wind turbines) mean power lines (and poles), substations, etc.